EVE Myles soared to success in Torchwood but will new period drama Victoria top that and become the new Downton?

Eve Myles is refreshingly realistic about fame and TV. And although less than impressed with the BBC’s failure to recommission her cherished drama, Frankie, in which she played the lead character who heads a nursing team, she is viewing the future of ITV’s latest costume drama, Victoria, with cautious optimism.

She is certainly not declaring – just yet – that Victoria is going to be the next Downton Abbey, although some critics have suggested that may be the case.

Downton had an abbey – but we have a palace and a queen

Eve Myles

The Welsh actress is immensely proud of the series, which has the unenviable task of challenging BBC1’s Poldark in the battle of the Sunday night bonnets – and ratings.

She had only managed to see 10 seconds of the eight-part series when we meet at a photo shoot on her 38th birthday, a similar scenario she found with hit drama Broadchurch when she played Claire Ripley in the second series.

“But in that case,” she explains, “we didn’t get the scripts until we were shooting it on the day.”

Her character in Victoria is the less-than-royal Mrs Jenkins.

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'You are honoured to do a series'

The Welsh actress is immensely proud of the series, which has the unenviable task of challenging BBC1’s Poldark in the battle of the Sunday night bonnets – and ratings.

She had only managed to see 10 seconds of the eight-part series when we meet at a photo shoot on her 38th birthday, a similar scenario she found with hit drama Broadchurch when she played Claire Ripley in the second series.

“But in that case,” she explains, “we didn’t get the scripts until we were shooting it on the day.”

Her character in Victoria is the less-than-royal Mrs Jenkins.

Eve says: “She has worked for the royal family for 25 years and is the Queen’s chief dresser. It’s her and a character called Penge who run up and down the stairs.

“She warms up through the series but when you first meet her she is quite a non-filtered, stark, tough working-class lady who has originally come up from Newport as a maid and worked her way up over the years. She is a very sarcastic character, which is great fun to play.

“Obviously, with Adrian Schiller who plays Penge, we have really good chemistry together, so it’s good fun.

“Jenkins and Penge are the only two characters that were not historical. Almost everybody else is mentioned in memoirs, such as very famous lords and ladies [including Rufus Sewell’s Lord Melbourne].

But as Daisy Goodwin [scriptwriter] has created Jenkins and Penge, she can do what she wants with them.”

Which is exactly what happened in the first episode when Mrs Jenkins was selling-on Queen Victoria’s gloves. She was saved by one of the maids who accepted the blame.

Later, Eve reveals, Mrs Jenkins becomes entangled with a group of Chartists [a movement that fought for working-class political rights] from Newport.

Meet the cast of ITV's Victoria

You may struggle to identify Eve, whose outfit is rather austere, even for the Victorian period.

“You won’t recognise me,” she says. “The last period drama I did, a long time ago, was called Little Dorrit, where I wore prosthetics.

“I love being unrecognisable. In Victoria there was a chap I worked with before for five years, Tom Price. He played a character in Torchwood. I sat next to him for three-quarters of an hour and he didn’t know it was me. It was great.

“I said: ‘Are you not going to say anything to me?’ Then he recognised my voice and the gap in my teeth. It was brilliant.”

While there’s no word yet about a second series of Victoria, the impressive set makes you think the team is planning on staying around for a few years yet.

Eve reveals: “We were shooting at Church Fenton in Yorkshire, then all over Yorkshire, including Harewood House [near Leeds]. All beautiful places. The set was actually built in Church Fenton, in an RAF hangar there, and they built Buckingham Palace. The sets were unbelievable.”

But she is quick to add: “Nothing is permanent these days in good old TV. You just don’t know. You are honoured to be doing one series. If it happens again then that is a bonus, but you do the best with what you have got.”

Eve, who has two young children, Matilda, six, and Sienna, two, was away for long periods, as it was “seven hours from door to door”.

She jokes: “If it goes again I think I am going to get my pilot’s licence.”

Eve is married to fellow actor Bradley Freegard, who she met at the National Youth Theatre in 1994.

“We made a commitment when we were having children that one parent would always be home, so one would work and the other would stay with the children,” she says. “So far it’s worked. Our priorities are to pay the mortgage and feed the children. It comes down to practicality. It’s been a long year for me, doing Victoria.

I also did a film in the month Victoria gave me off in January.

“So he starts next month. It’s healthy. He’s been home that amount of time, now it’s his time to go and play. It’s only fair.”

Eve appeared in Doctor Who, but rose to fame as the spirited Gwen Cooper in the sci-fi thriller spin-off series, Torchwood.

At the time, series creator Russell T Davies described her as “one of Wales’ best-kept secrets” and wrote the role specifically for her.

Then, with the secret out, she was cast in the drama Frankie which had a short shelf life despite its popularity.

“It was a fantastic series. I loved every second of it,” Eve says. “I thought it was ground-breaking.

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Eve Myles with Nell Hudson (Skerrett) robing the new queen, played by Jenna Coleman

I get asked 10 times a day: ‘When are they bringing Frankie back?’ I was in Greece recently and every single day I had people asking me. We had an amazing following. The BBC just decided they didn’t want it, but we never had a clear reason why not. We need to start a petition to get it back.”

No need for any public campaign to bring back Broadchurch, a series not without its challenges. Apart from never knowing what is happening with your character until the last moment, Eve reveals it was a much darker role than she had expected.

“I joke that by series three she should be in jail for her involvement in the murder,” she says, putting on a fabulous poker face while avoiding the question of whether Claire will be making a reappearance. “She was horrendous. I loved playing her to a point but when [episodes] seven and eight came in I said: ‘I am ready to leave now. She is absolutely barking mad.’

“When I auditioned for the part I had just given birth to my second daughter. The only bit of advice I had was use your instinct. I didn’t realise she was the Lady Macbeth and the catalyst, which was great, because if I had known that from the beginning I couldn’t help but play it differently. Only knowing what was on the page was a revolution.”

Eve’s passion for acting is obvious, as is her talent for picking successful series, but would she want her daughters to go on the stage?

“Because of their age they don’t really know much about my success. What was lovely was that I got to do Bedtime Stories for the BBC so me and my daughter sat and watched it together. It was fantastic, the best gig ever,” she says.

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“But now of course Matilda believes I work for the Queen. When she started full-time school last year, people would say to her: ‘Your mum’s in Doctor Who.’ She would come home and ask: ‘Are you in Doctor Who? Are you in Torchwood? Are you famous?’ and I would say, ‘Yes, yes and no. I am not famous. I am your mum. Mummy does normal mummy things.”

But does she want the girls to follow in her footsteps? “No. They are both going to be dentists.”

Victoria started strongly in the ratings, drawing in an audience of almost six million, so there’s a strong possibility it will be recommissioned – and it seems to be surviving the onslaught from rival Poldark on BBC1.

So is Eve waiting to see how Victoria goes before accepting anything else?

“It depends on what it is and how good it is,” she says. “We will see.

I certainly don’t want to put all my eggs in one basket. Frankie taught me a lesson. No matter how much you enjoyed something or how well it was received, it doesn’t necessarily mean you will be doing it again.

“That’s one good thing that came out of Frankie. No matter how committed I am to Victoria, I am always looking for work.”

But surely it is, as has already been suggested, the next Downton Abbey.

“Inevitably, people are going to look at it like that,” Eve says.

“It is a big period piece by ITV. You are dealing with class, but they had an abbey – we have a palace and a Queen.”